demulcents

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

The president of the United States just
passionately equated “both sides” as being responsible for the Charlottesville violence and murder over the
weekend.He actually sees Nazis and
anti-Nazis as morally equivalent.He astonishingly
sees white supremacists and anti-white supremacists as morally equivalent.Mr. Trump clearly came out in defense of his
white supremacist base.

I find this disgusting.

I am sure some of my conservative friends might
feel obligated to agree with the president.
And I also condemn left wing violence as well as right wing. But Charlottesville is not ambiguous. This is not a confusing moment. One side was very, very wrong. One side is responsible for the violence.

The GOP
nominee for governor of Virginia and a former RNC chair:The white supremacists and neoNazis who
invaded cville espouse reprehensible views that have no redeeming value
whatsoever. Simple as that.

The
former spokesman for the Obama Justice Department: Quite possibly the worst thing he has ever
said. The white supremacists who were there heard him loud and clear. And so
did the rest of us. https://t.co/QsuC7UWnWS

Only the Republicans can get rid of
this disgrace of a president. The
Democrats don’t have the votes to impeach him.
When do the Republicans flip the switch?
He can be impeached on a number of grounds, starting with his violation
of the emoluments clause in the constitution, plus the bribery clause. Plus, eventually I expect we will see
evidence of conspiracy with a hostile foreign power to influence the election
in his favor. Plus, of course, his
blatant obstruction of justice in firing the head of the FBI who had been in
charge of investigating Russian election interference.

Do the Republicans wait until they see
their own careers jeopardized? Or can
they react out of their own sense of honor and dignity to turn on this most
dishonorable and undignified person?

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Last week was a bad week for us all. The question has always been how will this unstable and childish president react to actual difficult world events? How will this person who has major emotional public meltdowns when he is criticized publicly stand up to an actual crisis?He failed - twice in one week.First, he responded to Kim Jong Un's test firing of ICBMs by doing pretty much the stupidest thing you can do when dealing with a paranoid tyrant - he threatened nuclear war. I know this excited his brutish base. But, speaking of his base...White supremacists violently rallied in Charlottesville - confederate flags, Nazi flags, assault rifles, batons, shields, torches at night - and created violent confrontations with counter protesters. Three people died. Two police died in a helicopter crash, and one was killed by an appalling full throttle acceleration of his car into a crowd of counter protesters. Many others were injured. So, our president's response? To blame both sides."We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides."And then he went on to talk about how wonderful the economy is under his stellar leadership...It is certainly appropriate to ask for calm, on both sides. But only after strongly condemning the instigators of the violence - the armed white supremacists who came to create violence. But, of course, Trump didn't do that. Indeed he can't do that - the heart of his base is the white supremacist community, who have been given permission by this white supremacist president to come out of the dark hiding places they have been lurking in for decades and strut proudly in the limelight - and do so with violence. Trump's favorite poll is the Rasmussen Poll which consistently skews conservative. His approval there is 45%, compared to about 37% average of all the other polls. But inside the Rasmussen Poll is 27% who Strongly Favor Trump. It is not hard to conclude that the white supremacist agitators in Charlottesville are amongst the Strongly Favor group.

Friday, August 11, 2017

It’s
not just Trump that is a problem in today’s politics. Those Republicans caught in the various bubbles
of conservative dogma are the ones doing great damage to the country and the
world. Trump is the peacock - the
Republicans are the wolves.

For
example – health care. The “Freedom Caucus”
in the House of Representatives and their dogmatic compatriots in the Senate
are promoting the repeal of Obamacare, but the impact of that obsession is to
make it impossible for about 20 million people or more to be able to afford
health insurance. This is not something
that provides freedom for people. It is
something that enslaves them to untreated health problems, robs them of the
freedom of a healthy body that access to medical care gives them. The “Freedom Caucus” might best be renamed
the “Trap the Citizens in a Spiral of Poverty Caucus”.

For
example – the environment. The Republicans
have been so blinded by the dogma of Reaganomics (in this case the deregulation
part of Reaganomics) that they are stripping the country of the protections put
in place to fight against the corporate polluters. Those captured by this piece of dogma think
they taking the restraints off of business and creating jobs, but what is
really happening is that they are going back to the “good old days” of filthy
air and water. I find this disgusting.

For
example – tax breaks for the wealthy.
Here is the second part of the obsolete and damaging dogma of
Reaganomics – tax cuts for the wealthy.
I understand the idea that reducing taxes on the "job creators" is supposed to stimulate the
economy. I thought that myself up until the financial crash of 2008. But I now understand that it doesn’t work. What stimulates the economy is to empower the
middle class, not to give more money to the wealthy. As I have written often, Reagan lowered taxes
and the economy grew, Clinton raised taxes and the economy grew more, Bush
lowered taxes and the economy stagnated.
Tax rates for the wealthy do not have much of any effect on the growth of
the economy. Yet, this is a dogmatic
belief of the Republican Party.

For example
– restrict immigration and kick out immigrants.
This is especially dumb, it seems to me.
Less educated immigrants have always been a spur to the American
economy. Plus, highly educated
immigrants are key to the tech industry.
This is little more than bigotry.

For example
– talking tough. Good grief! We now have a president that thinks the way
to deal with the paranoid man-child running North Korea is to threaten him with
nuclear holocaust. And there is a
portion of the Republicans who are glad that we finally have a president with Balls. Idiotic. What you do is de-escalate, not escalate the
rhetoric. Trump is very “brave” –
putting the lives of South Koreans, Japanese, Guamanians, and Chinese at risk
in order to strut his childish bravado.

I’m
not sure when the Republican Party lost its ability to think, probably about the
time talk radio and Fox News became vehicles for the Oligarchy propaganda
machine.

I
realize that there is much to criticize about those lost in left wing dogmatic
bubbles as well – the ridiculous extremities of identity politics, the unaffordable
notion of Medicare for everybody, the dumbing down of a college education if
college becomes a free entitlement, etc.
But the left wing is in the margins and the right wing is running the
country off the cliff.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Kim Jong Un tests ICBMs - the U.N. unanimously imposes tough sanctions - Kim threatens nuclear strike against U.S. - Trump threatens nuclear strike against North Korea .... WHAT? ... Kim threatens nuclear strike against U.S. Territory, Guam ...Children with nukes. Not good.Apparently, the ridiculously ignorant, unstable, childish man that the Republican Party elected to be our president thinks that if Kim Jong Un threatens to use nukes against the U.S. that Kim is insulting his personal manhood.

I believe that Kim Jong Un knows that the only way he doesn't become Qaddafi or Saddam Hussein is to be a nuclear power, and to be threatening. So, don't escalate! Stay calm and carry on. He will only become a real threat if we have another child looking back at him from the U.S. thinking that it's all about his pathetically insecure manhood. Kim's only point is that he can launch if he is invaded. The U.S is under no threat of invasion by North Korea. The big question has always been how will this disturbingly childish president react to a real crisis? This guy has melt downs if he sees someone on the news criticize him, so what does he do if a real crisis leaps up in his face? Hurricane? Environmental catastrophe? Financial meltdown? Foreign policy threats and aggressions?Children can get into a schoolyard fight, but the ones who die are us....

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

What's the most important thing to Republicans? Cutting taxes on the wealthy. The wealthy are the ones who want it, and the wealthy have managed to convince the middle class Republican voter that cutting taxes on the wealthy will create jobs for them - all nonsense of course, but political beliefs are hard to change, and decades of propaganda by the Oligarchy have had their effect. The failed attempt by the Republicans to kill Obamacare was really not much more than a tax cut for the wealthy, camouflaged with distracting rhetoric. It's an ideology called Reaganomics - cut taxes to spur the economy. But it doesn't work. Reagan cut taxes and the economy grew (after he raised taxes again a few times). Clinton raised taxes and the economy grew even more. W cut taxes and the economy flat-lined. Reaganomics is just a dogmatic belief that doesn't work, but the duped by the Oligarchy Republican common voter hasn't figured that out yet.Dogma, dogma, dogma - the killer of democracy.

Friday, July 28, 2017

Republican senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and John McCain defied their President and their Republican Senate leadership and voted against the last ditch attempt by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Thank goodness.I give a special salute to John McCain who postponed his treatment for brain cancer to come back to the Senate. He voted Yes to allow debate and amendments to the Republican plans - a dignified approval of the democratic process. And he voted No to the Republican efforts to overthrow Obamacare - a compassionate caring for the people of America. His biggest message to Congress is to stop the blind dogmatic opposition to the Other Party, reach across the isle and fix and improve the current health care system. Of course, that is the obvious solution. Obvious facts - repealing Obamacare will put somewhere between 15 and 30 million people without health care. The conservative dismissal of that idea is that many of those people would be young and healthy people who don't want health care. But the liberal rejoinder is that without the healthy in the insurance pools the cost for the sick, the infants, and the elderly would be prohibitive and they would not be able to afford health care. The result would be all of these people would not have regular check ups and would not have preventative health care, and they would end up in emergency rooms with advanced stages of illness and injury that would further drive up insurance costs, driving more people out of insurance, creating more unhealthy going to emergency rooms, etc. etc. etc. I side with the liberal argument because I believe it makes the most sense, and it is the most compassionate.Unfortunately, the Heartless-In-Chief immediately declared he would "let" Obamacare fail - that is to say, he will continue his cruel sabotage of Obamacare. States that worked constructively with Obamacare have had good health care, and states that sabotaged Obamacare have had bad health care for their people. Those that will continue to sabotage the existing law will make life much more miserable and dangerous for their people.But, today, I salute and honor these three Republicans with a heart.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

There may be hope for America after all. The House and the Senate voted 419 - 3 and 98 - 2 to sanction Russia for interfering with our elections AND gives Congress veto power over the president if he tries to relax the sanctions. Plus, some of the penalties have been converted to law, making it even harder for Trump to statisfy his Russian puppet masters. Also sanctioned are North Korea and Iran. Trump doesn't get to be king. He is getting away with a lot, but I am happy to see both sides of the isle putting him in his place regarding Russian sanctions.

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About Me

I am a boomer who has been both a left winger and a right winger and am seeking to add some soothing energy to the inflamed polarizations of today's rhetoric. However, in the age of extremist Republicanism I see the best way to soothe the waters is to oppose the inflammations from the Right, and the Left as needed.